Recognizing that you may need a stress leave is, in itself, an important realization.

Depending on your workplace, you may have access to short-term or long-term disability benefits through an insurance provider. Some plans provide full salary replacement, while others cover a percentage of your income. Your employer or Human Resources department can usually explain what benefits are available.

Some people also choose to combine vacation time with unpaid leave, depending on their circumstances.

A stress leave isn't simply time away from work. It can also be an opportunity to better understand your relationship with work, the pressures you're carrying, and what has made this pace feel necessary. Many people begin or continue therapy during a leave for this reason.

If you're considering a medical leave, it's often helpful to speak with your family doctor. They can explain the process, discuss whether a leave is appropriate, and complete any required medical documentation. Insurance providers may also request an assessment by a psychologist or psychiatrist, depending on the claim requirements.

If we're working together, I'm also happy to provide a letter confirming your participation in therapy and the general areas we're exploring, if that's helpful

When work begins affecting your relationship, it's often a sign that something has expanded beyond the boundaries of your work day.

Long hours, emotional exhaustion, or feeling like you have nothing left to give at the end of the day can quietly change how you show up with the people you care about. Sometimes partners begin arguing more. Sometimes they simply begin feeling further apart.

Therapy isn't about deciding whether your relationship or your job is the problem. It's about becoming curious about what work has come to represent in your life, what it asks of you, and why it has become so difficult to leave behind when the work day ends.

As that relationship with work begins to change, many people find that they have more space for rest, connection, and the parts of themselves that exist outside of their job.

Not always.

People often describe feeling stuck, disconnected, or emotionally flat.

Sometimes that's about the work itself.

Sometimes it's burnout.

Sometimes grief.

Sometimes an organizational culture that no longer fits.

Sometimes a relationship with achievement that began long before your first job.

Therapy helps us slow the question down.

Success and fulfilment don't always arrive together.

I often work with people in demanding professions—lawyers, physicians, nurses, engineers, people working in technology, education, finance, and leadership—who have achieved many of the goals they once set for themselves. From the outside, their lives appear successful. Yet privately, they find themselves feeling exhausted, disconnected, or wondering why their accomplishments haven't brought the sense of satisfaction they expected.

This doesn't necessarily mean you've chosen the wrong career. Sometimes it means that work has gradually become the place where your identity, worth, or sense of responsibility has gathered. Therapy offers a space to explore that relationship, so that success is no longer the only measure of how you're doing.

I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing panic attacks at work. They're more common than many people realize and can be incredibly frightening. It's also worth speaking with your family doctor, particularly if this is your first experience of panic or your symptoms have changed.

From my perspective as a Gestalt therapist, I don't see panic attacks as something to simply manage. To me, they're the body's way of sounding an alarm. I often understand a panic attack as your inner knowing trying to bring something very important to your attention. When panic begins before or during meetings, presentations, or even at the start of the workday, I become curious about what your experience may be asking you to acknowledge.

Gestalt therapy gives us ways to slow down and allow that experience—your panic, your body, your emotions—to speak. Rather than asking only how to make the panic stop, we become curious about what it may be asking of you.

Burnout is often described as exhaustion.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it's the experience of living too far away from yourself for too long.

Rest matters.

Boundaries matter.

But sustainable change often asks a deeper question:

"What made this way of living feel necessary?"

You don't have to know.

Many people begin therapy without a clear answer.

They simply know that something about the way they're working—or the way they're living—is no longer sustainable.

That's enough.